A Muslim Princess in the Temples of Viṣṇu Author(s): Richard H. Davis Source: International Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1/3 (Jan., 2004), pp. 137-156 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20106886 Accessed: 12-05-2016 18:45 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of Hindu Studies This content downloaded from 128.135.100.113 on Thu, 12 May 2016 18:45:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms A Muslim Princess in the Temples of Visnu Richard H. Davis I begin this essay with a story.1 It tells of the daughter of the Muslim Sultan of Delhi who falls in love with an icon of the Hindu god Visnu and follows it all the way to southern India, where she dies and gains posthumous beatitude within the Hindu temple. The tale is preserved, in slightly differing versions, in several pre-British South Indian Vais?ava texts and primarily relates to two major ?rivaisnava temples, the temple of Visnu Raggan?tha at Srirangam near Tricbi and the N?r?yanasv?mi temple at Melkote in Karnataka.2 The Delhi princess also turns up in other South Indian temples, as we will see. Viewing the Sudan's daughter in her medieval setting, I would like to show how this narrative offers reflections on the problematic relations of contending Hindu and Muslim elites, the incorporative possibilities of bhakti, and the space accorded to Islam within the established Hindu temples of late medieval South India. THE TULUKKA N?CCIY?R'S STORY In the Srirangam temple chronicles, the K?yil Oluku, the story opens during the fourteenth-century invasion of South India by the forces of the Delhi Sultanate. The Turkic army plunders the Srirangam treasury and takes away among the booty the main processional idol of the temple, known as Alakiyamaijav?la Perum?J, Vis?u as the "Handsome Bridegroom." As the troops head back north, a woman from a nearby village disguises herself and follows their camp. She has taken a vow never to eat before the image is fed, so she has a personal stake in the fate of the icon. Back in Delhi, the Sultan locks up all the looted idols in his palace storeroom. The village woman observes what has happened to Handsome Bridegroom and returns to Srirangam to tell the temple authorities. The elders of Srirangam close up the temple, suspend all festivals, and travel International Journal of Hindu Studies 8,1-3 (2004): 137-56 ? 2005 by the World Heritage Press Inc. This content downloaded from 128.135.100.113 on Thu, 12 May 2016 18:45:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 138 / Richard H. Davis to Delhi to seek their divine image. Meanwhile the Sultan's daughter discovers the handsome image of Visnu lying in the storeroom and takes it to her room as a plaything. While the temple elders negoc?ate with the Sultan, the village woman gains entry to the women's quarters and discovers that Visnu is "playing with the princess during the day in the form of an icon, and at night in his full splendor as a human incarnation" (Hari Rao 1961: 26). The chronicles are too discrete to describe just what they do at night. The temple singers and dancers of Srirangam put on a performance for the Sultan and so please him that he offers them a treasure. Of course they ask for their icon, and the king orders it brought from the storeroom. It is not there. The visitors inform him that it is now kept in the princess* bedroom. The Sultan will not allow them to enter the harem and instead challenges them: "You yourselves will have to call back your god." The Sultan is putting to the test the Hindu claim that their idols are in fact living divinities. The temple reciter sings an invocation of Vi?nu. From the harem Handsome Bridegroom hears the call, puts the princess to sleep, and comes out to rejoin his devotees. The Sultan is so amazed that he allows the Vaisnavas to depart with their treasured icon. The Melkote version related in the Prapann?mrta likewise features a con frontation in the Sultan's court. Here it is R?m?nuja, founder of the N?r?ya?a sv?mi temple, who goes to Delhi in search of the processional image known as R?mapr?ya. The Sultan shows R?m?nuja his treasure room filled with looted icons, but R?mapriya is not among them. The Sultan taunts R?m?nuja, "If this Visnu R?mapr?ya is your god, and you have summoned him, why has he not come back to you?" (Ramananarayanacarya 1966: 96). That night Visiju appears to R?m?nuja in a dream and informs the despondent ascetic that he is staying in the bed-chamber of the princess. The next morning the Sultan escorts R?m?nuja into the women's quarters, and there indeed stands R?mapr?ya, dressed in yellow with musk on its forehead and adorned with beautiful jewelry. The princess has lavished her royal attention on the statue and unknowingly mimicked the services of Hindu image worship. Overcome with love, R?m?nuja exclaims, "Beloved Son," and the image jumps into his lap. They embrace. The Sultan is so impressed with the miraculous leap of the idol that he immediately gives it to R?m?nuja. The next morning, in the K?yil Oluku recounting, the princess learns that the object of her affections has been taken away. She is heartbroken. Her father observes her state and decides to send troops to capture the Vai?navas. The princess accompanies them. The Srirangam temple servants learn that they are being pursued and manage to elude the troops. They send the Handsome Bridegroom image, along with three Brahman servants, into hiding in the hills around Tirupati. Finally the princess reaches Srirangam, but when she finds the This content downloaded from 128.135.100.113 on Thu, 12 May 2016 18:45:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms A Muslim Princess in the Temples of Visnu / 139 gates locked and her beloved Handsome Bridegroom absent, she dies from the acute pain of separation. The Melkote version allows the princess a more congenial end. Here she actually accompanies the Vaisnavas on their journey south. The Sultan honors the icon and R?m?nuja and permits his daughter and son to accompany the Vais?avas on their journey back to Melkote. Along the way, the Beloved Son icon mysteriously appears in the palanquin of the princess, and then the princess is seen no more. She has become one with Vi??u, explains the text, and the entire party is astonished by her devotional apotheosis. When the Vaisnavas reach Melkote and consecrate the processional image, R?m?nuja decides that an image should be made of the Sultan's daughter so she could continue to worship at the god's feet. He sends the brother back to Delhi to inform the Sultan, who is saddened but also amazed by the news of his daughter's devotional demise. Temple authorities at both Srirangam and Melkote established shrines in the temple precincts to commemorate the devotion of the princess from Delhi. In Srirangam, the shrine of the Tulukka N?cciy?r ("Turkic queen") occupies one of the inner enclosures of the temple complex. According to local tradition, the Sulf?n himself was supposed to have donated a large land-grant of fifty-seven villages to maintain the shrine (Somasundaram Pillai 1965: 34). There is no image of the princess but rather a painting depicting her modestly covered with a shawl. A divan stands before the painting. When the portable image of Handsome Bridegroom visits the shrine, he is treated to a Muslim-inflected form of p?j?, much as he might have been during his sojourn with the princess in Delhi. VisQu wears a ludgi, and he is served the roti, cap?ti, cold milk, and green gram d?l typical of a North Indian breakfast His betel leaf is smeared on the front side of the leaf, in the manner typical of local Muslims.3 In Melkote the shrine of the Turkic princess was located in a less central position. In the early nineteenth century the British official Francis Buchanan observed it during his survey of T?p? Sultan's former territories: She [Tulukka N?cciy?r] no sooner came near the idol than she disappeared, and is supposed to have been taken into its immediate substance; which, in this country, is a common way of the gods disposing of their favourites. A monument was built for the princess; but as she was a Turc, it would have been improper to place this building within the walls of the holy place; it has therefore been erected at the foot of the hill, under the most abrupt part of the rock (1807,2: 71; emphasis in original). The shrine, such as it is, is some distance from the main sanctum However, the N?cciy?r also resides much closer to her lover, in the form of a small metal This content downloaded from 128.135.100.113 on Thu, 12 May 2016 18:45:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 140 / Richard H.